Gardening tools are well known and have been used for centuries. In particular rakes for collecting grass and leaves from a lawn are well known. Although conventional rakes are relatively efficient at gathering material into a pile it is still quite difficult to pick up the material and put it in a bag or other receptacle.
Accordingly a number of inventions have been suggested for improving rakes to facilitate picking up the material. For example U.S. Pat. No. 3,688,484 issued to Cox on Sep. 5, 1972, U.S. Pat. No. 4,991,386 issued to Dirksen on Feb. 12, 1991 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,564,266 issued to Laughlin on Oct. 15, 1996 are all quite similar. These patents show two rakes pivotally attached together generally in the middle of the elongate handles. Accordingly, during raking, the user would have to hold too handles, thus increasing the weight and making the use somewhat more difficult. A somewhat different design is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,833,250 issued to Lawrence on Sep. 3, 1974. This patent shows two rakes, each having a handle which is hingedly attached at opposed ends of a cross-handle. The three handles are arranged such that they may be held in axial alignment. It appears that the Lawrence rake would be somewhat difficult to use In both the rake mode, since the cross-handle looks awkward, and In the picking up mode, since the cross-handle looks like it might interfere.
Accordingly it would be advantageous to provide a rake that can easily move from a raking mode to a picking up mode. Further it would be advantageous to provide a rake that is easy to manufacture and easy to use.